The disadvantage of winning an election

• Autores: Enriqueta Aragonés, Santiago Sánchez Pagés
• Localización: XVIII Encuentro de economía pública, 2011
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • This paper analyzes the problem that an incumbent faces during the legislature when deciding how to react to policy proposals such as the outcome of referenda or popular initiatives. We argue that this is a potential source of electoral disadvantage for the incumbent because his choices factor in the citizens� evaluation of his performance. We analyze the incentives of the incumbent to implement policies that are unpopular but closer to his preferred ones. We characterize conditions under which this potential disadvantage can be transformed into an electoral advantage by the incumbents. We find that the choices of the incumbent during the legislature will be closest to the policy proposals when the intensity of electoral competition is neither too soft nor too tough. Finally, we use our results to discuss some implications of the use of mechanisms such as referenda and popular assemblies on electoral competition.